Generally, the organic light emitting diode (OLED) is formed by depositing the organic thin films between the upper metal cathode and the bottom transparent anode. The OLED is manufactured on the transparent substrate, e.g. the glass, and the transparent anode is made of the transparent conductor such as the indium tin oxide (ITO). Please refer to FIG. 1, which is a typical organic light emitting diode with multiple heterogeneous structures. The organic light emitting diode comprises the anode 11, the cathode 17 and a plurality of organic layers with the hole injection layer 12, the hole transport layer 13, the emitting layer 14, the electron transport layer 15, and the electron injection layer 16. Such conventional organic light emitting diode belongs to the bottom-emitting OLED. When applying the bias voltage to the layers 1216 between the anode 11 and the cathode 17, the light is emitted through the transparent anode 11 and the substrate (not shown). Please refer to FIGS. 2(a) and 2(b). FIG. 2(a) shows some typical materials of the hole transport layer such as α-naphtylphenylbiphenyl diamine (α-NPD) and 1,1,4,4-tetra phenyl-1,3-butadiene (TPD), and the typical material of the electron transport layer and the green-fluorescence emitting layer such as tris(8-hydroxyquinolino) aluminum (Alq3). FIG. 2(b) shows the typical materials of the hole injection layer 12 such as polyethylene dioxythiophene:polystyrene sulphonate (PEDOT:PSS) and 4,4′,4″-tris(3-methylphenylphenylamino)triphenylamine (m-MTDATA).
In some OLED applications, such as the ones applied on the silicon-chip substrates or other opaque substrates, the top-emitting OLED is desired. Since the light must be emitted from the top surface of the top-emitting OLED, the cathode on the top of the OLED should be transparent or translucent. Furthermore, in some other OLED applications, the OLED must be transparent so that the light could transmit the OLED. Hence, in addition to the transparence of the anode, the cathode on the top of the OLED should be transparent or translucent.
Moreover, in active matrix OLED displays (AMOLEDs), the transistor driver circuit of each pixel has to be integrated with the OLED. However, the light of the conventional OLED from the organic layers thereof is emitted downward via the transparent substrate and the ITO. Therefore, the emitting area is limited due to the covering by the driver circuit on the substrate. For this reason, the top-emitting OLED is desired so as to improve the filling factor of the AMOLED to approach to 100% and to prevent the influence by the covering area of the transistor (especially when the driver circuit is complicated). On one hand, the top-emitting OLED is capable of improving the image quality and the properties of the displays, and on the other hand, the top-emitting OLED is capable of increasing the design flexibility of the AMOLED in designing the driver circuit of the AMOLED. As described above, with the top-emitting OLED, it is possible to design the driver circuit with better functions (e.g. resolution) and properties.
At the present day, there are two major methods for manufacturing the transparent or translucent cathode:                (1) The top transparent cathode is formed by sputtering transparent ITO or other transparent metal oxide conductors with some proper electron injection layers.        (2) The top transparent cathode is formed by the thin metal layer (usually with a thickness less than a few tens of nanometers).        
The first method is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,548,956, U.S. Pat. No. 6,469,437, U.S. Pat. No. 6,420,031, U.S. Pat. No. 6,264,805, U.S. Pat. No. 5,986,401, U.S. Pat. No. 5,981,306, U.S. Pat. No. 5,703,436, U.S. Pat. No. 6,140,763 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,776,623. Because the deposited organic layer is easily damaged during the sputtering process, sputtering ITO or other transparent metal oxide conductors on the organic layer is relatively difficult to control. Besides, the power of the sputtering should be as low as possible so as to prevent the thin film already deposited underneath from being damaged. Therefore, the processing time is prolonged. Moreover, the conductivities of most transparent metal oxide conductors are substantially less than those of the metals. Thus, the transparent metal oxide conductors have higher resistance than metals.
The second method is to utilize the thin metal layer (usually with a thickness less than a few tens of nanometers) as the translucent cathode. The thin metal layer not only has better conductivity, but also is more easily made on other organic layers. However, the major problem of using the thin metal layer as the translucent cathode is that the light transmission is lower. For example, the light transmission of the Ag layer of 20 nm is only 30%. The light transmission of the Al layer of 20 nm is even lower. The light transmission of the layer composed of the Ca layer of 12 nm and the Mg layer of 12 nm is only 40-50%.
The method of depositing the transparent dielectric layer on the thin metal layer for improving the light transmission of the cathode is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,739,545, U.S. Pat. No. 6,501,217 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,714,838. The whole cathode structure includes the thin metal layer having the high activity and the low work function such as Ca, Mg, Sr, Li or the stacks thereof, and the transparent dielectric or large bandgap semiconductor such as ZnSe, ZnS or GaN upon the thin metal layer. All materials in the disclosed patents are desired to be deposited by thermal evaporation so as to simplify the manufacturing processes and improve the compliance of the process. However, the major problem of such cathode is that the utilized metal has high activity and reactivity such as Ca, Mg, Sr or Li, that is disadvantageous for the environmental stabilization of the components.
In view of the above, the transparent cathode of the OLED made of the thin metal layer has better efficiency and compliance for the processing. In order to improve the problem of the lower light transmission, the transparent dielectric should be stacked upon the thin metal layer for acquiring higher light transmission. The problems of the conventional technology include that the utilized metal belongs to unstable metal with high activity, or the transparent dielectric with high refractive-index value could not be deposited by thermal evaporation.
Moreover, no matter what conductive material is used for the anode of the OLED, usually there is a problem with the hole injection. Because the difference between the work function of the conductive material and the ionization potential (IP) of the organic opto-electronic materials is disadvantageous for the hole injecting from the anode to the organic layer. Therefore, this has an effect on the opto electronic properties of the top-emitting OLED.
Hence, an OLED having an electrode structure with a matched energy level helpful to inject the hole to the organic hole transport layer is needed. And as mentioned previously, a new OLED with the translucent cathode structure formed by depositing the metal with lower activity and transparent dielectric material via thermal evaporation is also desired.